EUROPE CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE CVA Policy... · 2014-05-02 · A more equitable and sustainable...

EUROPE CAN MAKE

THE DIFFERENCEHow Social Accountability Improves the Lives of Children

© World Vision International 2014

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Author: Alexandra Newlands. Reviewed by: Kate Eardley, Jeff Hall.Senior Editor: Heather Elliott. Production Management: Katie Klopman Fike,Daniel Mason. Copyediting: Joan Laflamme. Proofreading: Audrey Dorsch.Cover Design and Interior Layout: Lara Pugh

Cover photo © World Vision/Jon Warren

Inside photos:p. 2 Sopheak Kong/World Visionp. 6 Simon Peter Esaku/World Visionp. 7 Gidalia Santana/World Visionp. 8 Nune Hayrapetyan/World Visionp. 10 Mohamad Almahady/World Visionp. 13 Mary Kate MacIsaac/World Visionp. 14 Jon Warren/World Visionp. 15 Collins Kaumba/World Vision

EUROPE CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE

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Executive SummaryFamilies and communities hold the key to unlocking accountability in governance, from local services to global frameworks. Social accountability – the act of enabling citizens to hold their state to its promises and obligation – improves and sustains progress in development, enables the involvement of some of the world’s most vulnerable children and people, and generates data that helps to track and improve the well-being of children.

Citizen Voice and Action (CVA) is World Vision’s approach to social accountability. Evaluations show that when communities apply the CVA approach, services improve, work environments become healthier, citizens are empowered, and local governments become more efficient. Ultimately, these changes result in improved well-being of children.

If we are going to end the preventable deaths of children under 5 and enable children everywhere to complete a full course of primary schooling, we must increase our investment in social accountability approaches like CVA. A post–Millennium Development Goals world will greatly benefit from robust mechanisms for social accountability that equip citizens themselves to drive effective, sustainable development. As the world’s biggest aid donor, the European Union (EU) and its Member States have an influential role to play in shaping the next development framework. But we need political champions willing to stand up for those children furthest from the kind of health and education they deserve. We need to invest in social accountability that puts them at the forefront of the post-2015 development agenda.

World Vision calls on the European Union to:

1. Allocateandtracksignificantresourcesthatscaleandmeasuretheimpact of social accountability approaches, particularly in fragile and conflict-affectedcontexts.

2. Integrate and strengthen social accountability approaches across EU programming aimed at crisis prevention and recovery, democratic governance and addressing the underlying causes of chronic poverty.

3. Champion the inclusion of robust mechanisms for social accountability inthepost-2015developmentagenda.

4. Ensure that citizens are involved in the planning and review of local services and monitoring of related national and global development targets.

Families and communities

hold the key tounlocking accountabilityin governance, fromlocal services toglobal frameworks.


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Introduction

We are in a time of change. As we count down to December 2015, efforts to build on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and address their weaknesses are well under way. The global community, individual countries and organisations can celebrate the progress made in saving children’s lives; the number of children dying each year under the age of 5 has fallen from 12.6 million to 6.6 million in the past two decades.3 But at a time when major advances in global child health are being rightly applauded, millions of children around the world still die unseen, invisible, unregistered and unable to access the kind of health services that could save their lives. A more equitable and sustainable future for all children depends upon more accountable institutions at the local, national and global levels.

The first step towards improving institutional accountability is to improve citizens’ access to key information about the most critical issues in their lives. By raising awareness about rights, entitlements and the performance of critical services like health care and education, we can lay the foundation for an evidence-based dialogue between citizens and government. In particular, information generated by communities themselves empowers citizens and governments to work together to reduce social inequality. Institutions that listen and respond to the poorest and most marginalised people and who show a willingness to collaborate with communities to bring about change are central to closing the health and education equity gaps.4

But increased access to information is not enough to ensure accountability. In addition, communities need to be engaged in the decision-making processes that affect their lives. Citizens and government need venues (virtual and physical) to discuss the information and evidence they have and to ensure an institutional response. Citizens no longer want to be considered as passive beneficiaries with needs, but rather as true agents of change and partners in the process of development.

Social accountability approaches can help ensure this agency. These approaches equip citizens to engage constructively with government in evidence-based dialogue that nurtures accountable institutions from the local to the global levels. This report examines World Vision’s approach to social accountability, called Citizen Voice and Action, and explores how social accountability can improve health and education outcomes, empower children and youth, and adapt to different environments, including fragile contexts.

The extent and capability of citizens to hold the state and service providers accountable and make them responsive to the needs of citizens. Social accountability approaches are geared to making governments more transparent, accountable, and participatory. – World Bank1

A form of civic engagement that builds accountability through the collective efforts of citizens and civil society organisations to hold public officials, service providers and governments to account for their obligations with responsive efforts. … Based on ‘voice’ rather than votes, social accountability initiatives provide a channel for direct political participation. – UNDP2

Information generatedby communities themselves

empowers citizensand governments towork together toreduce social inequality.

Definitionsofsocialaccountability


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World Vision’s Social Accountability Approach

Citizen Voice and Action is being implemented successfully today in more than 375 of World Vision’s long-term development programmes in 43 countries5 across five continents.

Figure 1: Implementation of Citizen Voice and Action around the world in financial year 2014

Introduction to Citizen Voice and ActionCurrent social accountability approaches build upon decades of progress in the field of participatory governance. The instruments of social accountability are varied and include:

• social audits

• community scorecards

• citizen report cards

• participatory budgeting

• public-expenditure tracking

• traditional feedback mechanisms, such as focus groups and satisfaction surveys

• citizen-led mechanisms, such as community management or user management committees.


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The common goal of these instruments is to improve the performance of those governments and their relationships with citizens. As performance and relationships improve, so do services. And, as services improve, so do development outcomes for children.

In 2005, World Vision built upon the work of others to design the Citizen Voice and Action approach.6 CVA equips communities to engage in constructive dialogue with government to hold it accountable for the services that children and their families use on a daily basis and ultimately to take hold of their own future in a sustainable way. By using a simple set of participatory tools, communities monitor local public facilities and compare reality against government commitments. The methodology lies at the intersection of data collection, awareness raising and community-led advocacy.

CVA is a replicable and sustainable approach successfully applied today in more than 375 of World Vision’s long-term development programmes in 43 countries. It is a series of activities divided into three phases:

1. enabling citizen engagement (civic education about concrete rights and entitlements)

2. engagement through community gathering (a scorecard, social audit and interface meeting)

3. improving services and influencing policy (implementation of an action plan to improve services).

Figure 2: Implementation phases of Citizen Voice and Action

The methodology liesat the intersection of

data collection, awareness raisingand community-led

advocacy.


5

The approach helps to improve relationships between people and their government to sustain development progress over the long term. CVA fosters constructive, evidence-based dialogue among citizens, government and service providers that strengthens relationships and renews trust.

Through CVA:

• Communities learn about basic human rights and how these rights are articulated under local law.

• Communities work collaboratively with government and service providers to compare reality against government commitments using an adapted social audit tool.

• Communities rate their government’s performance against subjective criteria that they themselves generate, using an adaptation of the ‘community scorecard’.

• Communities convene town-hall style ‘interface meetings’ that foster constructive, evidence-based dialogue about concrete ways to improve services. Citizens, service providers and local government work with other stakeholders to influence decision makers to improve services, using a simple set of advocacy tools.

Why Citizen Voice and Action?1. CVA promotes sustainable developmentCitizen Voice and Action equips communities to drive the development process themselves. As communities become stronger, and civil society becomes more experienced, World Vision’s role decreases. In many places practitioners report that social accountability programmes are conducted entirely by communities. Research corroborates these reports; randomised control trials by Oxford University showed that communities using elements of the approach were 16 per cent more likely to be able to solve collective action problems.7 Recent literature suggests that that these problems lie at the heart of sustainable development.8 Moreover, CVA is inexpensive,9 making the approach a sustainable way for communities to improve child well-being on their own.

Citizen Voiceand Action equipscommunities to drivethe developmentprocess themselves.

In a series of randomised control trials,10 World Vision partnered with Makerere University, Oxford University and Georgetown University to study a variety of ways to reduce teacher absenteeism in 180 rural government primary schools in six districts in Uganda. In the first trials researchers concluded that the ‘scorecard’ used in the CVA approach had resulted in

o a 9 per cent increase in primary school test scores

o an 8–10 per cent increase in pupil attendance in the treatment communities using the CVA scorecard

o a 13 per cent reduction in teacher absenteeism

o a 16 per cent higher likelihood that communities would solve collective action problems

Scorecards that did not allow communities to define the criteria to be measured had no effect on education outcomes.

Research demonstrates encouraging results in communities using Citizen Voice and Action


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2. CVA generates local data to drive national decisionsThe data generated through CVA provides local governments with a more accurate picture of service performance and client satisfaction. But the quantitative data that communities generate can also be easily aggregated in order to help identify systemic problems that require a policy-level solution. In many countries the data from the CVA ‘scorecard’ and the ‘social audit’ process help equip civil society with an evidence base that frames debates at the district, provincial and national levels.

In the second round of trials11 researchers studied the effect of an SMS (short message service)-based monitoring system in combination with a variety of pay-based incentives. In one promising intervention, preliminary results show that teacher absenteeism was reduced by 29 per cent. In order to achieve these results, bonus payments (€17 a month) were provided to teachers who attended school. Attendance was monitored by text messages with a combination of head-teacher and parental reporting.

Many of the local and district politicians have reported that their participation in CVA has helped to increase their knowledge and confidence to lobby successfully for services on behalf of their constituents. While this is not a definitive finding, it is clear that improved leadership skills matter, as does the relationship between these local leaders and those responsible for resourcing local services.

World Vision currently supports 37 CVA programmes in Uganda. By aggregating community-level data, practitioners have been able to influence national-level policy.

In 2013, CVA practitioners worked to aggregate and analyse the evidence from dozens of clinics in Kiboga district. Together with coalition partners, CVA practitioners were able to document serious gaps in clinic personnel. They progressively and constructively raised these issues with government officials, including their elected representatives.

Representatives responded. During one meeting brokered by World Vision, one member of Parliament, Honourable Sylivia Namabidde, stated, ‘Given the evidence on the ground, as legislators, we are going to block the budget until more is allocated to the health sector’. Together with other representatives, Representative Namabidde persuaded the Ugandan parliament to ensure that the funding gap was addressed.

Two weeks later an additional UShs.49.5b (€14 million) was allocated to the health sector for recruitment of health workers and enhancement of medical workers’ salary packages. The prime minister’s office publicly committed to the hire of 6,000 new health workers. Staff costs aside, the World Vision Uganda office estimated the cost of the advocacy work at just €2,900.

Case study: Communities influencing national decisions in Uganda


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3. CVA encourages child and youth participationA growing body of evidence12 suggests that when children are provided with the opportunities to participate, they develop cognitive abilities, respect for others, self-esteem and social skills, the ability to think critically and a robust understanding and exercise of democratic citizenship.

Social accountability approaches like CVA offer a platform for children to develop these skills and to participate in the decisions that affect their lives. But social accountability does more than boost a child’s personal development; it also improves development effectiveness by shining light on problems that adults might not recognise. CVA provides a safe space for children and youth to raise difficult issues such as gaps in child protection, teacher absenteeism, deficient infrastructure, lack of supplies or even alcoholism in their homes. By equipping children and youth confidently to raise these issues, service providers and policymakers obtain a fuller picture upon which to base their decisions.

CVA offers a platform

for children to develop

these skills and to

participate in the

the decisions thataffect their lives.

Youth Monitoring of Public Policies (or ‘Monitoramento Jovem de Politicas Públicas’, known by its Portuguese acronym, MJPOP) is the Brazilian adaptation of Citizen Voice and Action. MJPOP empowers children and young people to identify and addresses the issues affecting them in their daily lives.

Since 2010, World Vision has equipped youth in the marginalised community of Cajazeiras with the CVA/MJPOP tools. In its first experience the group decided to focus on the dilapidated Municipal School of Ricardo Pereira, because many of the youth had studied there and lamented its condition. The infrastructure was so poor that on rainy days children received electric shocks from some of the school walls.

In the beginning many didn’t believe that was possible to get the government to respond to the school’s problems. According to 16-year-old Ricardo Pereira, ‘I started to learn that schools are also the responsibility of the government, that we do our part when we pay our taxes, and that we have to demand that this money return to us through quality public services’.

With this understanding, the young people went to the local municipal council to ask for the collaboration of the elected representatives. Not all the legislators were receptive. But some were, and a key local representative agreed to work with the youth to apply the CVA tools and evaluate the school’s condition.

This work with the local representative transformed the youths’ perception of government. Before, the politics seemed abstract and distant. But through CVA they learned that politicians were public employees, accountable to the people.

The youths formed an alliance with the local representative who agreed to work with them and the school administration to use CVA tools to measure the school’s compliance with government policy. They convened an ‘interface meeting’, presented the evidence they had gathered through the ‘scorecard’ and the ‘social audit’ process, and petitioned the Ministry of Education for funds to fix the school.

In Brazil, youth achieve ‘electrifying’ success at local primary school


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It was not easy, but eight months later, the school was completely renovated. According to local representative Marta Rodrigues, ‘Without this monitoring, the renovation process would have been lost in the Education Department’.

The success of MJPOP groups like this one have catalysed a national network of children and youths who routinely influence state, national, and international policy. Most recently, MJPOP groups worked with a local rap celebrity to deliver a song at a conference for the sustainable development, Rio+20.

Youth discuss health issues faced in their local community.

In the rural Lori region of northern Armenia the number of children living in extreme poverty is double (9 per cent) the national average. World Vision has been using CVA since 2008 to equip communities to monitor and improve health services.

In Alaverdi, teenage schoolchildren conducted a survey that revealed that health officials carried out fewer than 40 per cent of free check-ups to which schoolchildren were entitled. With World Vision’s support, six students arranged a meeting with officials at both local and regional levels to remind them about their obligations. The evidence-based dialogue with the Ministry of Health defined the debate and empowered the children and their community to be persuasive in this forum. The meetings resulted in significantly more health check-ups and in an increased knowledge amongst the community of its right to health.

In 2013, 86.9 per cent of children surveyed in World Vision’s Alvaredi Area Development Programme knew at least three or more of their rights, and 71.5 per cent could name more than two places to turn if their rights were violated, compared to respectively 24 and 53 per cent in 2008, according to the baseline survey.

The CVA process has also provided children, previously left on the sidelines, with a platform to raise their concerns and be an active part in the decision-making process.

Case Study: Armenian children unlock their right to health


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According to a recent UNICEF report on child-responsive accountability,13 ‘introducing the idea of accountability to children on the ground may seem overly ambitious while children are still perceived largely as passive recipients of public services, but children are gateways to building a culture of accountability – crucial to sustainable development, in international parlance, but importantly, key to building their own future’ (p. 24).

The EU has explicitly committed to promote and effectively safeguard children’s rights in socio-economic and development policies. By enabling child participation in development, the EU can advance its commitments. With incentives from the EU, governments and authorities should be encouraged to create an environment in which child participation is meaningfully and effectively realised.

4. CVA helps to tackle fragility and build resilienceSocial accountability is a key way to build a responsive, inclusive and resilient state. As recently emphasised by the UNDP, ‘voice, participation and empowerment are central to both conflict management and inclusion aims and to providing mechanisms for citizens … to monitor the international humanitarian and national delivery of services’.14 It further acknowledges that ‘at the heart of peace building is the aspiration to build back better states that are more participatory and accountable to their citizens and that can deliver on security, health, education, and livelihoods’.

The EU has a special role to play in advancing resilience by supporting accountable institutions in fragile contexts. In April 2013, EU Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs, issued a statement on how the EU has taken up the challenge of ‘helping countries in situations of fragility to establish functioning and accountable institutions that deliver basic services and support poverty reduction’.15 Moreover, the achievement of the goals pledged at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan will greatly depend on the ability and willingness of states to develop methods and tools that facilitate their citizens’ engagement in the monitoring of commitments made.

World Vision’s experience with CVA suggests that social accountability can help build resilient communities by nurturing improved relationships between citizens and government. By building on local knowledge and working with authorities and service providers over the long term, even the poorest communities are able to increase their resilience to fragility and to transform relationships with those who govern.

Emerging experience demonstrates that even in fragile contexts, social accountability can help transform relationships between citizens and government by enhancing constructive civic engagement.16

Social accountability

is a key way to builda responsive, inclusive

and resilient state.


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In the absence of basic infrastructure and limited delivery capacity in the world’s newest country, most people in South Sudan remain cut off from the services they need the most. Health, education and food security indicators remain close to crisis levels. Government capacity to deliver services is fledgling and is limited by financial constraints; further, continuing conflict on a national scale means local governments are left alone to meet their communities’ needs.

The importance of focusing on long-term effects drives World Vision’s CVA work in schools and health facilities in order to contribute to children’s education and good health in Tambura County (Western Equatorial state).

Already, a number of tangible achievements can be seen:

• regular evaluations of public-service facilities and plans by local social audit committees, which have formed in more than half of the communities where the programmes are being implemented

Building peace, trust and governance in the new country of South Sudan

In Pakistan, one in every 110 women dies due to causes related to childbirth. After his aunt became one of these statistics, Ahmad promised to work for the improvement of maternal health. For more than a decade he worked, but he felt his efforts were fruitless. Finally, in 2013, he began to see results.

In Ahmad’s community World Vision started a project to raise awareness in the local community about child and maternal health issues, focusing especially on prenatal and postnatal care, safe deliveries, birth spacing, danger signs in pregnancy, as well as infant and childhood diseases. Staff implemented CVA to mobilise and encourage people to improve government accountability.

As part of the CVA process, 25 community members attended a meeting with the district health officer, asking the government to establish a labour and delivery room at a local basic health unit. Lack of budget meant the district health officer initially denied the request. During a second meeting people presented evidence from the CVA process about their village to the government officials and explained why the labour room was necessary. After multiple meetings, health officials agreed.

‘Whengovernmentofficialsannouncedgoodnewsofthelabourroom at the basic health unit, tears of happiness came in my eyes. My dream of safe deliveries at a hospital came true’, says Ahmad.

The government has since provided basic equipment, including delivery kits and surgical instruments at a labour and delivery room at the basic health unit, which is now properly functional. Between 20 and 25 babies are delivered each month; 80 women benefit from prenatal check-ups; and more than 1,000 patients have been registered.

Helping mothers access health services in Pakistan


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• community-driven monitoring of – and solutions to – local fraud; school materials and health supplies that used to be diverted to the market can no longer be found on sale

• state-level meetings on health and education to flag local emerging issues that require intervention at the ministry level

• increased skills and knowledge among members of the public, government officials and service providers.

Initially, the government expressed reservations about encouraging people to highlight the state’s shortcomings. As positive results have been realised, however, relations between communities and the government have remained unaffected. County government officials understand the benefits of further engaging with local communities and are gradually acknowledging the value of CVA.

World Vision’s experience with CVA shows that it is possible for children and their communities to have a say in the decisions that affect them, even in difficult contexts. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a large, complex country battling conflict and facing the challenges of managing a growing mining sector.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo’s stable areas, Kinshasa, Bas-Congo, Equateur; in fragile places, North and South Kivu; and in a region with heavy mining, Katanga, the CVA approach is being adapted to suit the needs and capabilities of local communities and governments.

In each, community gathering and monitoring, civic education and mobilisation activities are the first steps. This is followed by constructive dialogue with the ministries of social, humanitarian, development and security affairs.

World Vision has implemented CVA programmes to empower children and their communities to demand improved local government services. Groups are formed from farmers’ associations, parents’ and students’ associations, NGOs and community-based organisations, religious groups and other local community members. After establishing whether active engagement of this sort is safe and appropriate, World Vision carries out needs assessments and provides basic trainings for the groups. They then work together to develop a simple picture of the local public services and to assess their quality.

The programme has resonated with government itself. In 2012, with World Vision’s technical assistance, the national government’s Ministry of New Citizenship designed a strategy to support social accountability across the country. This national-level support will undoubtedly assist communities as they seek to make their local governments more accountable.

CVA in one of the most complex countries in the world

It is possible for children and their communitiesto have a say in

the decisions that

difficult contexts.

H.E. Lambert Mende, minister of New Citizenship (left), greeting Mr Robert Kisyula, World Vision DRC country director (right), after the signature of the MoU on the adoption of CVA as the approach that will be used to promote the culture of new citizenship in DRC (Kinshasa, October 2012).

affect them, even in


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Social Accountability and the European Union

EU policiesThe EU has extensive experience working with civil society towards the promotion of democratic and inclusive governance. Through initiatives such as the Structured Dialogue,18 the Policy Forum on Development and the EU Roadmaps for Engagement with civil society organisations, the EU has demonstrated its commitment to social accountability. In recent years the EU has strengthened its commitment to supporting an enabling environment for civil society and stepped up its efforts to include civil society organisations (CSOs) as development actors in their own right in dialogue related to policy and programming of EU development aid. These commitments are enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty, the Cotonou Agreement and the Agenda for Change.

It is now time for the EU to ensure the effective implementation of its commitments by enabling the systematic and meaningful involvement of all stakeholders in holding their governments accountable, especially the most vulnerable children and communities, whose voices are rarely heard.

The European Commission Communication Increasing the impact of EU Development Policy: an Agenda for Change recognises that good governance is one of the two main priority areas of EU development policy, along with inclusive and sustainable growth.19 Social accountability is an essential element of good governance, and all EU policies and programmes should reflect this.

The European Commission recognised that an empowered civil society is a crucial component of any democratic and accountable system in its 2012 Communication The Roots of Democracy and Sustainable Development: Europe’s Engagement with Civil Society in External Relations.20 In it, the European Commission focuses on engagement with CSOs to build stronger democratic processes and more accountable, effective and sustainable systems that meet people’s needs. CSOs, including community-based organisations, play a critical role in complementing local and national programmes by identifying people’s needs; reaching out to the most vulnerable, excluded or marginalised groups; and developing innovative solutions. The European Commission recognises that CSOs can ‘play a role in boosting domestic accountability at local and national levels through a free, clear, accessible flow of information’ (p. 7) and that ‘the EU will support CSO capacities to engage effectively in these systems with a long term perspective, including at local level where a wealth of diverse and innovative approaches is emerging in the area of ‘social accountability’, including through the use of new technologies’ (p. 8).

The 2013 report on the EU support for democratic governance21 stipulates that ‘the strategic engagement with CSOs will be mainstreamed in all instruments and programmes, with an emphasis on enhancing the role of CSOs in democratic governance and accountability’ (no. 2, p. 3). It further recognises that ‘developing and enhancing existing local capacities helps promote effective institutions and improves the

‘Poverty reduction cannot be achieved without a government able to serve the public interest effectively by being accountable to its citizens and respecting the rule of law.’17 – European Commission

Social accountability

is an essentialelement of goodgovernance, and

all EU policies

shouldreflectthis.

and programmes


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government’s capacity to design and implement policies with the active engagement of all domestic stakeholders and to deliver services to final beneficiaries’ (no. 5, p. 8).

The EU has a strategic policy framework for engaging with communities through CSOs, in the interest of the most vulnerable children and families. And it has also committed to enhancing accountability approaches. Now is the time for the EU to position itself as a leading voice in promoting inclusive governance through support for social accountability approaches. It can demonstrate leadership by further encouraging EU Delegations to work with governments of partner countries to develop social accountability guidance and frameworks with existing government planning, monitoring and review processes, and ultimately scale up funding for social accountability.

EU fundingThe EU is playing an important role in providing funding for supporting democratic governance and engaging with CSOs. This is evident through its leadership on geographic instruments such as the European Development Fund, the Development Cooperation Instrument and the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument and through financing provided by the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights and the Instrument for Stability. The increase in the new Civil Society Organisations and Local Authorities (CSO-LA) budget from €1.639 billion (2007–2013) to €2 billion (2014–2020) is a tangible example of this commitment. However, it is challenging to track and assess the funds allocated to supporting key areas of governance, such as social accountability.

The preparatory document for the elaboration of the Thematic Programme on Civil Society Organisations and Local Authorities 2014–202022 contains a strong participatory approach to development and provides a commendable basis to support social accountability initiatives. Among other essential points it encourages the acknowledgement of ‘CSOs’ work to empower populations, promote inclusion and enhance governance and accountability’ (p. 3) and seeks ‘to support CSOs to hold public authorities to account at all levels, with a view to ultimately empower citizens’ (1.1.a, p. 6). It specifically states that ‘the programme will support initiatives promoting improved governance and accountability at country level and with public authorities, such as independent budget analysis, expenditure tracking, monitoring the implementation of policies and laws, anti-corruption initiatives, integrity pacts, participatory budgeting, participatory audits, procurement monitoring and public access to information legislation’ (1.1.a, p. 6).

In the same vein as World Vision’s CVA approach, the programme further supports initiatives that include ‘community mobilization and capacity development, in order to enable the targeted population to acquire increased understanding and ability to influence the underlying causes of the challenges they face in accessing services. The aim is to favour and stimulate a demand for social services by population to which public authorities should, in the long run, be able to respond, reinforcing their ‘downward accountability’ towards their citizens’ (1.1.b, p.). The programme will support CSOs’ actions aimed at improving the population’s access to (and benefit from) quality social services.

Now is the timefor the EU to position

itself as a leadingvoice in promoting

inclusivegovernance through

support for socialaccountability approaches.


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Unfortunately, the approach is not as prominently reflected under the Global Public Goods and Challenges (GPGC) programme. This raises the question of crossover or exposing gaps. Detailed references should be made to how the CSO-LA programme complements GPGC and other geographic programmes.

Thematic projects are often considered by many EU Delegations as separate and disconnected from bilateral cooperation, and are limited to the implementation of specific activities. Programmes focusing on good governance, for example, should promote engagement with communities. Promotion of democratic and inclusive governance, particularly in countries where good governance has been identified as a priority area, should be encouraged through combined activities financed by geographic and thematic programmes.

These financing approaches offer an opportunity, but they also present a challenge in evaluating the amount of funding that is allocated to social accountability approaches and citizens’ participation in improving the delivery of basic social services. In order for the EU’s policies and funding to strengthen social accountability that empowers people to enter in a constructive dialogue with authorities and service providers, the amount of EU development cooperation funding specifically for social accountability needs to be significantly increased. Efforts should be made to ensure that monitoring of this expenditure is improved, particularly if it is dispersed across a number of programmes.

The human rights–based approach within EU programmes, and specifically the CSO-LA programme, needs to reference further the importance of people voicing their rights, organising for change and influencing the decisions of their elected representatives. The choice of how to support civil society and community-based organisations should always be made taking into consideration the context and ensuring that the rights of people, including children’s rights, are at the centre of all funding through the EU programmes. It is important for programming to remain flexible to accommodate innovative ideas and projects, such as CVA.

World Vision calls on the European Union to:

• Allocateandtracksignificantresourcesthatscaleandmeasuretheimpact of social accountability approaches, particularly in fragile and conflict-affectedcontexts.

• Integrate and strengthen social accountability approaches across EU programming aimed at crisis prevention and recovery, democratic governance and addressing the underlying causes of chronic poverty.

• Champion the inclusion of robust mechanisms for social accountability inthepost-2015developmentagenda.

• Ensure that citizens are involved in the planning and review of local services and monitoring of related national and global development targets.


15

ConclusionEffective, representative and accountable local governance is critical to achieving national and international development targets. It is essential to look beyond national data and identify where the most vulnerable children live, determine what they are getting sick and dying from, and to enable and encourage their participation in changing the systems that could save them.

National governments and global organisations need to ensure that social accountability experience and expertise are built upon, not only to help improve service delivery and support progress towards the MDGs, but also to support the realisation of people’s expressed desire for responsive and accountable institutions. The framework that will be agreed by Member States in New York by the end of 2015 must reflect the realities of life on the ground. From Eastern DRC to Eastern Europe, what people have in common is that they want to be heard and be involved in decisions that affect their lives.

Despite positive steps forward, the EU has more to offer to the global efforts to improve governance through social accountability mechanisms and citizens’ participation, and ultimately to improve the lives and prospects of millions of children and their families around the world.

Every child has the right to be counted, the invisible deserve to be given visibility, and the most vulnerable children deserve to be given the opportunity to survive to fulfil their potential.

Every child hasthe right to be counted,

the invisible deserve

to be given visibility,

and the mostvulnerable children

deserve to be given

the opportunity to

survivetofulfiltheir potential.


16

Endnotes1 World Bank, World Bank—Civil Society Engagement: Review of Fiscal Years 2010–2012

(Washington DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 2013), 25, available on the worldbank.org website.

2 UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), Reflections on Social Accountability: Catalyzing Democratic Governance to Accelerate Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (July 2013), 3, available on the UNDP.org website.

3 UN Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, Levels and Trends in Child Mortality: Report 2013 (New York: UNICEF, 2013), 9, available on the childmortality.org website.

4 World Vision, More than Numbers: Why Better Data Adds Up to Saving the Lives of Women And Children, Child Health Now policy briefing (January 2014).

5 Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burundi, Cambodia, Chile, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe (data from April 2014).

6 See citizenvoiceandaction.org. The CVA methodology was adapted by World Vision staff members, led by Bill Walker and Keren Winterford, with key support from former World Bank staff member Jamie Edgerton. The approach originated from World Bank work undertaken in The Gambia and an initial participatory community scorecard developed by CARE in Malawi in 2002 as part of a project aimed at developing innovative and sustainable models to improve health services.

7 Abigail Barr et al, Information and Collective Action in the Community Monitoring of Schools: Field and Lab Experimental Evidence from Uganda (forthcoming), available at http://cega.berkeley.edu/assets/cega_events/3/ doc7Zeitlin-et-al_Information-and-Collective-Action-in-Community-based-mMonitoring-of-Schools.pdf. World Vision and SNV served as implementing partners in this study.

8 David Booth, Development as a Collective Action Problem: Addressing the Real Challenges of African Governance, Africa Power and Politics Programme (London: Overseas Development Institute, July 2012); Zahid Hasnain, Philip Keefer and Nicholas Menzies, How Capital Projects Are Allocated in Papua New Guinean Villages: The Influence of Local Collective Action, Local Level Institutions and Electoral Politics (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011).

9 The following studies have estimated that approaches like CVA cost roughly US$1.50 per beneficiary student or US$300 per child death averted: Andrew Zeitlin et al, Management and Motivation in Ugandan Primary Schools: Impact Evaluation Final Report [Draft], Centre for Study of African Economies, University of Oxford and Economic Policy Research Centre, Makerere University (Kampala: Makerere University, 2011), available at http://www.iig.ox.ac.uk/output/reports/pdfs/iiG-D10-UgandaPrimarySchoolsImpactReportFinal.pdf. World Vision and SNV served as implementing partners in this study. Martina Bjorkman and Jakob Svensson, ‘Power to the People: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment on Community Based Monitoring in Uganda’. Quarterly Journal of Economics (2009).

10 Jacobus Cilliers, Ibrahim Kasirye, Clare Leaver, Pieter Serneels and Andrew Zeitlin, ‘Improving Teacher Attendance Using a Locally Managed Monitoring Scheme: Evidence from Ugandan Primary Schools’ (September 2013). A joint project of Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), the Makerere University School of Computing and Informatics Technology, World Vision Uganda, Department of Economics and Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, Georgetown Public Policy Institute and University of East Anglia, available online.


17

11 See Ibrahim Kasirye, ‘Using Financial Incentives and Mobile Monitoring to Address Teacher Absenteeism in Uganda’s Primary Schools’ (forthcoming), available at http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/education-plusdevelopment/ posts/2013/09/05-financial-incentives-absenteeism-uganda-schools-kasirye.

12 Gerison Lansdown, Every Child’s Right to Be Heard: A Resource Guide on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment No. 12 (London: Save the Children UK, 2011), available at http://www.unicef.org/ adolescence/files/Every_Childs_Right_to_be_Heard.pdf.

13 Lena Thu Phuong Nguyen, ‘Child-Responsive Accountability: Lessons from Social Accountability’, Working Paper 2013-04 (Florence: UNICEF Office of Research, April 2013), available at http://www.unicef-irc.org/ publications/pdf/iwp_2013_16.pdf.

14 UNDP, Reflections on Social Accountability, 14, 66.

15 ‘Statement by Commissioner Piebalgs for the Third Ministerial Meeting of the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding,’ (April 2013), available at http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/news/documents/ statement-by-the-commissioner_en.pdf.

16 World Health Organization ‘Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2010 : WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and The World Bank Estimates’ (Geneva : WHO, 2012), available at https://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/ documents/publications/2012/Trends_in_maternal_mortality_A4-1.pdf.

17 European Commission website, Euopeaid > What we do > Governance, available at http://ec.europa.eu/ europeaid/what/governance/index_en.htm.

18 Dialogue and consultation process organised by the EU Commission, which involved more than 700 stakeholders and representatives from civil society, partner countries, Member States, the European Parliament and EEAS, including EU delegations. For more information, see https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/aidco/index.php/Structured_dialogue.

19 European Commission Communication, Increasing the impact of EU Development Policy: an Agenda for Change (2011) 637, available at http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/what/development-policies/documents/agenda_for_change_en.pdf. Endorsed by the Council of the European Union on 14 May 2012.

20 European Commission, The Roots of Democracy and Sustainable Development: Europe’s Engagement with Civil Society in External Relations, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, COM(2012) 492 final (Brussels: EC, 12 September 2012) , available on http://eur-lex.europa.eu/search.html?qid=1396972214894&text=%22wealth%20of%20diverse%22&scope=EURLEX&type=quick&lang=en. Endorsed by the Council of the European Union on 15 October 2012.

21 European Commission, On the EU Support for Democratic Governance, with a Focus on the Governance Initiative, Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions COM(2013) 403 final (Brussels: EC, 11 June 2013), available on http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1396972799178&uri=CELEX:52013DC0403. Endorsed by the Council of the European Union on 12 December 2013.

22 ‘Civil Society Organisations and Local Authorities’, Preparatory Document for the Elaboration of the Thematic Programme (n.d.), available at https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/aidco/images/3/36/EN_Synthetic_document_for_CSOLA_priorities_20142020_FINAL.pdf.

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EUROPE CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE CVA Policy... · 2014-05-02 · A more equitable and sustainable...

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